Substitute Boss
Substitute Boss is the 13th episode of Rails of Highland Valley. It made it to YouTube on September 14, 2017. Plot Mr. Edwards has been the yardmaster at Highland Valley since the mid-90s (Conrail era). He is in charge of all trains entering and leaving. He is also responsible for assigning the engines. He enjoys his work, but sometimes could use a break. Early one morning, Nicholas is preparing the last cars for Teduka's train. When Teduka is ready, he sets off for Altoona. Later, Mr. Edwards has an important announcement to make. He tells the engines that he is going on vacation for a week in Florida. Nicholas is interested and asks him questions. Mr. Edwards also announces that he will have a substitute watch over them for the week. Afterwards, Lily and Parker couple to Anette, who had finished getting the Richmond Limited consist. As they leave, Nicholas also leaves, as Mr. Edwards assigned him before he left. Josiah and Will start wondering who the substitute controller will be, and they (somewhat) find out 42 minutes later. The man yells their assignments at them and doesn't call them by their real names, which irritates them. Will and Jordan's job is to take a train to a Wheeling and Lake Erie interchange yard, and then to pick up another train to go home. They meet Nicholas (W&LE), who tells them where to go. When they get home later, they see Nicholas in conflict with the new guy. Jordan teases Nicholas, much to his annoyance. Meanwhile, Parker, Lily, and Anette made it to Richmond. Some time later, Yulogo arrives with the southbound Silver Star. When Yulogo finds out that Mr. Edwards is a passenger, he is intrigued. After the station stop, Yulogo continues south. Back at Highland Valley, Nicholas and Josiah talk about how annoying the controller is before they are interrupted by the controller and told to take a freight train to Newark, NJ. After a bit of an argument, Josiah and Nicholas set off for work. They make their way to Newark overnight as other trains, including Yulogo, are also making their ways toward their destinations. The next day, Josiah and Nicholas arrive at Highland Valley, but are rudely greeted by the controller. He demands that they should have returned immediately after delivering their freight train to Newark, but Nicholas tells him that they don't get assigned immediately after finishing certain tasks and they were unassigned for a few hours as they rested and refueled as needed. The controller is still not pleased, and tries to report them to Mr. Edwards. However, this backfires, as Mr. Edwards is too busy railfanning to answer his cell phone. Nicholas suggests to the new guy that he yell at Cameron instead of them, as Cameron is lazier. The substitute yells at Cameron to take an intermodal from Tidewater to Columbus. Cameron refuses before he is yelled at further. Meanwhile, Rigby, Mordecai, and Benson are pulling an intermodal. When the former two see Nicholas and Josiah gaming, they decide to join, but Benson tells them not to. This is when Nicholas and Josiah tell Benson about the controller who is taking Mr. Edwards' place. Benson also finds out the hard way when he along with Mordecai and Rigby are yelled at. After they leave, Kaleb and Arthur arrive. Arthur is angry, not because he was yelled at, but because he is still upset about BNSF not letting their content be featured in train simulators internationally. He and Kaleb have also seen the controller's attitude, however. They then leave, as they have a train to take to Knoxville. The new guy is about to yell at Nicholas and Josiah before Nicholas blows his horn and startles him. That evening, Lily and Parker return, only to see the new controller arguing with Kaiba and Jimmy, who are waiting for Kara to pass by. The man, however, orders them to leave anyway. In spite of being yelled at, they refuse to leave, giving Kara the chance to pass by. Lily is disgusted about the substitute's attitude. The man soon yells at Top Hat and Peach to help Angel Ace with a coal train from Brownsville, PA. Neither engine is happy about this. That evening, Lily asks her friends about the guy in charge. Nicholas, Shawn, and Benjamin tell her that's being annoying and bossing them around too much. They do agree that it's a good thing Jack and Ivonov are not there. Meanwhile in Jacksonville, CSX Ben complains about his day, as his crew waved to railfans at Folkston instead of flipping them off, and that someone made a GoAnimate video. Ivonov tells him to suck it up, as he uses GoAnimate to make grounded videos out of engines who refuse to listen to them. Jack, who also wants engines to take orders from him, agrees with Ivonov. Alan and a CSX C40-8W, however, tell all three engines off and Alan's Stupid Orange plush calls them stupid. As a few days passed, engines would sometimes think about what will happen upon Mr. Edwards' return as they go about their work. But engines assigned to switcher duty were never immune to being yelled at, as they were almost always in the yard. As Jaden is moving some cars, he is yelled at to hurry. Jaden refuses, as he sees a need to work slowly. The new controller doesn't yell at him however, as he now has his attention focused on Nicholas, who is pulling some tankers. Nicholas is yelled at to pick up the pace, but Nicholas has had it and comes to a stop. The substitute yardmaster is angry and starts to call Mr. Edwards. Jaden is able to intercept this, and he yells to the phone that everything is just fine. The controller is even more upset. The next day, some of the engines are playing around in the yard. That is, until Teduka drives the boss mad by accidentally hitting him on the head with his tennis ball. The substitute boss is angry and threatens extra work upon whoever hit the tennis ball. He then ordered everyone back to work. Back in Jacksonville, Mr. Edwards' vacation is basically over. When the northbound Silver Meteor arrives in Jacksonville, he boards it for the ride to Richmond, VA, where he will late transfer to the Richmond Limited. Later, Nicholas is having a conversation with an NS SD60, who tells him that Mr. Edwards is returning. The SD60 then leaves to get ready for his next assignment. Some time later, Will and Jaden are taking a local to Industrial Wasteland. At Highland Valley, they have to stop to let another train enter the yard. But things don't go exactly as anticipated. The substitute controller orders them to keep going, in spite of the orders. Will and Jaden refuse, as they will not risk getting into an accident, even at a lower speed. The man still yells at them even as the train pulls in. Will and Jaden still do not move until the line ahead is clear. As they continue on their way, they start to find the situation amusing and can't help but to think about it. When they meet up with everyone else that evening, they explain to them what had happened, which brings up a discussion before the controller rudely interrupts them. He even tries to give Jaden a triple workload for supposedly making fun of him. Just then, Anette and Miranda bring the Richmond Limited into the station. Mr. Edwards later exits the train and asks how things are going. This is when the engines expose the substitute's treatment toward them and the substitute reveals that he is actually Mr. Wyatt. He explains that he was in jail before Dora's human self somehow managed to get him out of jail. He also says that he used a fake ID to pose as a controller so that he could overwork the engines as revenge for turning him in to the police two years ago. Mr. Edwards is angry about this and orders Mr. Wyatt off the property at once. Everyone is thrilled to have Mr. Edwards back and Mr. Edwards gives out some jobs. The engines are back to work at once, but this time, they weren't yelled at. Meanwhile, Mr. Wyatt, for using a fake ID and possibly for not serving his full jail time, is now on his way back to jail. Characters * Mr. Edwards * Nicholas * Dakota (as a Conrail unit; cameo) * Will * Lily * Shawn * Josiah * Sportacus (cameo) * Caden (cameo) * Timothy * Kaiba * Lilim * Jordan * Teduka * Mordecai * Calhoun (cameo) * Parker * Anette * Mr. Wyatt * Barry (cameo) * Teduka * Nicholas (W&LE) * Yulogo * Brian (cameo) * Jack * Stewart (cameo) * Cleveland (cameo) * Mitchell (cameo) * Caillou (cameo) * Alan * Jaden * Nathan (cameo) * Darin (cameo) * Trey (cameo) * Stewie (cameo) * Neville (cameo) * Cameron * Rigby * Benson * Arthur * Kaleb * Schneider * Jasper * Jimmy * Kara * Top Hat * Peach * Angel Ace * Benjamin * CSX Barry (cameo) * CSX Michael (cameo) * CSX Ben * Ivonov * Bulge (mentioned) * Stupid Orange * CSX C40-8W #7756 (not named) * William (cameo) * Leopold * Elsa * Harold * Jerome (cameo) * NS SD60 #6649 (not named) * Freddy (cameo) * Bonnie (cameo) * Foxy (cameo) * Miranda * Wyatt Locations * Highland Valley * Richmond, VA * Industrial Wasteland * Tidewater * CSX A Line * NS Pittsburgh Line * Amtrak Keystone Route * Conrail NJT * Jacksonville, FL * Philadelphia (mentioned) Trivia * This episode is a bit similar to the Thomas The Tank Engine episode, "Sir Topham Hatt's Holiday", and the Regular Show episode, "Benson Be Gone", though neither were the inspiration. * This episode marks the first of a few things: ** First appearances of Calhoun, Nicholas (W&LE), Mitchell, CSX Barry, CSX Michael, Stupid Orange, Elsa, Harold, Freddy. ** Parker, Anette, Kaleb, Schneider, and Leopold's first speaking roles. ** Mr. Edwards' full name is revealed. *** First time a controller's full name is mentioned in the series. ** First time CSX Ben is voiced by BNSF 8010 and Wyatt is voiced by Nickolas Montagnino. ** Lionelkid456, Golden State Railfan, and Nickolas Montagnino join the cast. ** First time Richmond, VA visually appears in the series. ** First time the instrumental version of Caramelldansen is heard in Rails of Highland Valley. ** First time Ben (CSX) is shown with the YN3B paint scheme. * The CSX intermodal train that was seen passing Richmond Staples Mill Road Station is Q031. * Nicholas revealing that his cab is full of pictures of Lily was inspired by a roleplay the creator did with other people on Hangouts. * Mr. Wyatt saying "Don't argue with me, just go!", and Top Hat replying, "Do I have to earn a living with this motley crew?", is a reference to the TUGS episode, "Munitions". * A deleted scene from Run to Revenge is used. * Stock footage from Midnight Robbery is used for flashbacks. The events of that short are also referenced. * Dora (human) would have had to be clever to get Mr. Wyatt out of prison. She could have hacked criminal databases and erased his name, or possibly created the fake ID for him. * This is the second episode to use a guest narrator, in this case, being At The Crossing Productions. * This episode likely holds a new record of using the most Thomas music. * This episode was uploaded one day after the Rails of the Mojave short, "Jasper Tricks His Friends" and approximately 17 hours before Tales on Springfield Railroad Episode 24. * When Alan's Stupid Orange plush calls Jack, Ivonov, and CSX Ben stupid, it is a reference to the Stupid Orange series. * This episode is one of the creator's personal favorites, due to the presence of Richmond, VA and the CSX A Line. Quotes *'MR. WYATT:' "My name is not Sergeant Noname! It is-" Goofs * Some voice clips are too low. * The narrator pronounces "Yulogo" and "Kaiba" wrong. * An NS GP40-2 is missing its white unibrow. * When Mr. Edwards says "I will, thank you", he appears to be stuck in the platform. * Nicholas explains that Lily would be working the Northeast Regional the next morning, but she later seen pulling the Richmond Limited with Parker. It could be possible that she took a morning Regional to Washington D.C. and later teleported to somewhere like Cumberland or Connellsville to help Parker get the Richmond Limited the rest of the way to Highland Valley. * Mr. Wyatt's line "You there! Move quicker", is overlayed with one of the narrator's lines. * Elsa's number is 4006 instead of 4003. Episode Category:Episodes Category:Episodes focusing on multiple engines Category:Season 3 Category:Episodes reused from the creator's draft series Category:Episodes that feature a steam engine Category:Episodes not split into parts